The present invention relates generally to musical composition data generation apparatus, musical composition data generation methods and storage media for automatically generating musical composition data of melodies and accompaniments. Particularly, the present invention relates to an improved apparatus and method for automatically generating musical composition data suitable for reproduction on a variety of portable terminals, especially cellular phones, of various different types (manufacturers and/or models), in such a manner that a melody or accompaniment can be performed on each of the portable terminals on the basis of the thus automatically-generated musical composition data, as well as a storage medium for use in implementing the automatic musical composition data generation.
The recent proliferation or widespread use of personal computers has allowed every interested person to freely enjoy music by using computer music techniques, for example, to play a musical instrument, compose and arrange a music piece and synthesize a tone color. Particularly, in the field of musical composition using a computer, there have emerged automatic music composition apparatus which allow even a beginner with poor musical expertise to enjoy composing an original melody and accompaniment in a simple manner. Known examples of the automatic music composition apparatus, which automatically create a melody and accompaniment, include a musical composition data generation apparatus which is designed to automatically create or generate musical composition data of a melody and accompaniment on the basis of various input musical parameters characterizing the melody (hereinafter referred as xe2x80x9ctone generating parametersxe2x80x9d), such as those pertaining to a musical key, musical time, pitch leap dynamics, presence/absence of syncopation and chord progression. In cases where such a musical composition data generation apparatus is employed, a user can compose various original melodies and accompaniments freely and simply by just selectively inputting tone generating parameters to the apparatus.
Also, in recent years, there have been widely used small-sized and lightweight portable terminals, such as cellular phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), capable of wired or wireless communication, and a great many people are possessing and making use of such portable terminals because of their conveniences. These currently-used portable terminals (especially, cellular phones), irrespective of their manufacturers or models, emit very similar incoming call (message) alerting sounds. Thus, when any one of a plurality of cellular phones in a given place is emitting an incoming call (message) alerting sound, each of the users of the cellular phones can not readily ascertain whether or not his or her cellular phone is receiving an incoming call. To address such an inconvenience, there has recently been supplied a more sophisticated cellular phone equipped with an incoming call alerting melody function which performs, as the incoming call alerting sound, a user-desired melody and accompaniment instead of a monotonous and stereotyped sound. Musical composition data of a melody and accompaniment used in such a cellular phone are registered (stored) in the phone, for example, by the user personally entering the musical composition data through manipulation of keys on the phone or downloading musical composition data of an existing melody and accompaniment, so that the thus-registered musical composition data can be audibly reproduced as the incoming call alerting sound of the phone.
Generally, the musical composition data of a melody and accompaniment used as the incoming call alerting sound in each of the cellular phones have a data format specific to the manufacturer and/or model of the phone. However, the above-discussed conventional musical composition data generation apparatus is only capable of generating musical composition data of an ordinary or common data format, so that the data format of musical composition data generated by the data generation apparatus may not agree with acceptable data formats of some cellular phones depending on the manufacturers and/or models of the cellular phones; that is, some cellular phones may be unable to reproduce the melody and accompaniment based on the musical composition data generated by the data generation apparatus. For a solution to the inconvenience, each of the users of the cellular phones has to personally enter a desired original melody and accompaniment by manipulating the keys on the phone, which would, however, require very troublesome manual entry operations; thus, unless the user is sufficiently experienced in the manual entry operations, it would be difficult for the user to enter a melody and accompaniment as desired. Namely, the conventional musical composition data generation apparatus is quite inconvenient in that it can not readily generate musical composition data suitable for use on a variety of cellular phones of various different manufacturers and/or models. Further, even where the data format of musical composition data generated by the generation apparatus suits cellular phones of a plurality of manufacturers and/or models, the melody and accompaniment would sometimes be reproduced with musical characteristics (e.g., tone volume and quality) differing among the manufacturers and/or models.
In addition, because the data format of musical composition data generated by the generation apparatus can not be converted into another data format fitting cellular phones of a particular manufacturer and/or model, the musical composition data generated by the generation apparatus can not be used on cellular phones of a plurality of different manufacturers and/or models.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a musical composition data generation apparatus and musical composition data generation method which can automatically generate musical composition data suitable for use on portable terminals, such as cellular phones, of various manufacturers and/or models in such a manner that any one of the portable terminals of various manufacturers and/or models can appropriately reproduce a melody and accompaniment without inconvenience, as well as a storage medium storing machine-executable instructions for implementing such musical composition data generation.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a musical composition data generation apparatus and musical comosotion data generation method which can automatically generate music composition data and convert the thus-generated musical composition data into a data format suitable for use on portable terminals, such as cellular phones, of various manufacturers and/or models in such a manner that any one of the portable terminals of various manufacturers and/or models can reproduce the same melody and accompaniment from the musical composition data, as well as a storage medium storing machine-executable instructions for implementing such musical composition data generation.
In order to accomplish the above-mentioned objects, the present invention provides a musical composition data generation apparatus which comprises: an input section that inputs type information indicative of a type of portable terminal and music composing parameters; and a musical-composition-data generation section that, on the basis of the type information indicative of a type of portable terminal and the music composing parameters inputted via the input section, generates musical composition data suitable for reproduction on a portable terminal of the type indicated by the type information. For example, the musical-composition-data generation section in the present invention carries out an automatic music composition process on the basis of the input type information indicative of a type of portable terminal and music composing parameters and thereby generates musical composition data, taking musical characteristics into account, so that the generated musical composition data suit reproduction on a portable terminal of the type indicated by the type information. For instance, a melody and accompaniment can be performed which is musically natural. As a consequence, the present invention can readily generate musical composition data that can reproduce a musically natural performance for each type of portable terminal.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provide a musical composition data generation apparatus which comprises: an input section that inputs type information indicative of a type of portable terminal and music composing parameters; a musical-composition-data generation section that generates musical composition data on the basis of at least the music composing parameters inputted via the input section; and an adjustment section that, on the basis of the type information indicative of a type of portable terminal inputted via the input section, adjusts predetermined musical characteristics of the musical composition data generated by the musical-composition-data generation section. Thus, balance in predetermined musical characteristics between portable terminals of different types can be achieved by adjusting the predetermined musical characteristics of the generated musical composition data in accordance with the individual portable terminal types. For example, where the portable terminals of different types differ from each other in volume characteristics of tones generated from the same musical composition data, tones can be reproduced from the musical composition data with same musical characteristics for any type of portable terminal, through tone volume level adjustment performed on the musical composition data to provide equal generated-tone volume characteristics. The present invention is not necessarily so limited and may also be applied to cases where control is performed on a musical characteristic peculiar to the type of portable terminal.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a musical composition data generation apparatus which comprises: an input section that inputs music composing parameters; a musical-composition-data generation section that generates musical composition data on the basis of the music composing parameters inputted via the input section; and a conversion section that receives type information designating a type of portable terminal and converts a data format of the musical composition data, generated by the musical-composition-data generation section, into a predetermined data format suitable for reproduction on a portable terminal of the type of designated by the type information. For example, the musical-composition-data generation section in the present invention first generates musical composition data of a predetermined data format (e.g., MIDI format) irrespective of the type of portable terminal, and then converts the data format of the thus-generated musical composition data into a predetermined data format suiting the type of a portable terminal to be used.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a musical composition data generation apparatus which comprises: an input section that inputs type information indicative of a type of portable terminal and music composing parameters; a musical-composition-data generation section that, on the basis of the type information indicative of a type of portable terminal and music composing parameters inputted via the input section, generates musical composition data suitable for reproduction on a portable terminal of the type indicated by the type information; a storage section that stores the musical composition data generated by said musical-composition-data generation section; a reading section that reads out, from said storage section, selected musical composition data; and a transmission section that transmits the read-out musical composition data to a designated portable terminal.
The present invention may be constructed and implemented not only as the apparatus invention as discussed above but also as a method invention. Also, the present invention may be arranged and implemented as a software program for execution by a processor such as a computer or DSP, as well as a storage medium storing such a program. Further, the processor used in the present invention may comprise a dedicated processor with dedicated logic built in hardware, not to mention a computer or other general-purpose type processor capable of running a desired software program.
While the described embodiments represent the preferred form of the present invention, it is to be understood that various modifications will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the invention. The scope of the present invention is therefore to be determined solely by the appended claims.